The Gas Vans: A Critical Investigation - Holocaust Handbooks

SANTIAGO ALVAREZ, THE GAS VANS 33
The origin of Fleming’s photo was publicly revealed only in 1995,
when Jerzy Halbersztadt, at that time director of the Polish Program of
the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC,
posted the following text to the newsgroup Holocaust: 26
“The commission received the information that in the town KO-
LO (ca. 12 km from Chemno) in the former factory of Ostrowski
there was a van which, according to the witnesses, was used in the
death center at Chemno. The van was found, photographed and researched.
The photos taken then are available in the Main Commission’s
Archives in Warsaw (signatures 47398, 47396, 47397, 47399; the
best one is 47398). The captions of these photographs are till today:
‘a car for killing people by the exhaust fumes at Chemno’. One of
these photos was reproduced in the Fleming’s book ‘Hitler and the
Final Solution’ with the information that it is a photograph of a
‘gaswagon’ used in Chemno.
Despite of their captions, the photographs do not show the gas
van used in the Chemno death camp. It is clear from the testimonies
of Polish witnesses kept in the same archives of the Main Commission
(collection ‘Ob’, file 271 and others). Witnesses to whom the
van photographed in Kolo was shown did not confirm that it was one
of those used in Chemno for killing people. Some of them only said
that it was similar to those described in their testimonies, but not the
same. The most common answer was: ‘I didn’t see this one’.
The inspection of the van in Ostrowski factory, done on 13 November
1945 by the judge J. Bronowski, did not confirm the existence
of any elements of system of gassing of the van’s closed platform.
The witnesses called this van ‘a pantechnicon van’ (a van to
transport furniture). It was produced by ‘Magirus-Werke’ with a
Diesel type engine of ‘Deutz’. The plate on the engine stated: ‘Humboldt-Deutz
A.G. ‘Magirus-Werke’ Ulm (Donau) Baujahr 1939
Lieferdat 739 Abn-Stempel. Fahrgestell Nr. 9282/38 Nutzlast kg
2700 Fah[r]gestell-Baumuster 023. Ei[ge]ngewicht 4980 kg. Motor
Baumuster FoM 513 zul. Gesamtgew. 7900 Leistung P.S. 105 cm 3
7412. Zulaessige Achsendruecke vorn kg 2400 hinten 5500.’ The
26 http://dss.ucsd.edu/~lzamosc/chelm00.htm; response to an inquiry by Leon Zamosc,
University of California, San Diego, 11 Oct. 1995; Subject: Gas vans in Chemno; enhanced
with illustrations at
www.deathcamps.org/gas_chambers/gas_chambers_vans.html; since 1996 Halbersztadt
has been Director of the Museum of the History of Polish Jews.